Work starts on go-home accord for the nine
IEBC Chairman Issack Hassan with members of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reforms on August 3, 2016, after a meeting. The joint committee is discussing a negotiated settlement for the IEBC officers. PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- Then it will be joined by the legislators to thrash out the deal and the changes to the laws. It has up to August.
The Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reforms has begun a series of in-house meetings to work out the details of the negotiated settlement for the departing electoral commissioners and the changes to election-related laws.
Its secretariat will precede 14 lawmakers to a yet-to-be-disclosed location. Then it will be joined by the legislators to thrash out the deal and the changes to the laws. It has up to August.
Members of the committee told the Nation over the course of their discussions in the past two weeks that they would be seeking to settle the contentious matters by consensus rather than voting.
This is because, according to the motion that set up the committee, the threshold for voting in the team is two-thirds, with each member holding a single vote.
This would mean that for the committee to agree on a matter, at least 10 of the 14 members have to agree (two-thirds of 14 is 9.24).
Among the contentious matters between the Cord and Jubilee coalitions is whether to have a new voters’ register, how the new commission will be recruited and the declaration of presidential election results.
The committee has up to August 12 to finish its work.
Its report and proposed amendments to the election laws will have to be signed off by the Majority and Minority leaders, with the heads of the Jubilee and Cord coalitions then asking their MPs to back them.
